@@jamesmelton4412 No I'm not trolling I'm trying to figure why people like this compared to today's NASCAR I mean we have single file races like in yesterday's NASCAR and people complain about calling it boring But people the 70s a d 80s NASCAR even though it's the same racing
You know Tim, it's that very "down home" flavor of sensibility that's long gone in today's NASCAR. The powers that be are just trying so hard to make Top Flite Professional Stock Car Racing into a "Reality TV Talent Show," with the occasional 'Fist Fight' or, short of that, the promise of one. It's all so manufactured that IMO, it's not fun to watch and no where close to this 1985 Version of The Daytona 500 for authentic and real American Auto Racing.
@@twerktospec No but not having the classic drivers we grew up with is what I believe he meant. I can remember《43》the King Richard Petty in his iconic blue and red. So many incredible racers, Earnhardt, Petty, and so many more. If listed them all we'd be here all day. My point is back then the races had more spectacles, more to see, better racing, and oh the cars, the cars were EPIC! But the men who drove those cars....ICONS!
@@EdsterIII Perhaps having time to reflect helps us view them in a better light. That being said, yours and many others' nostalgia, while it may hold some things back, there is also several valid good ideas and sentiments there, too, that need to influence and inspire the present.
This is when Nascar resembled a "real sport". No competition cautions, no lucky dogs, no green white checkers, or a million other things to try to bunch up the field and create drama in a non-legitimate way, which is really just catering to the folks who only watch for the wrecks. Believe it or not, there used to be races where an underdog could manage tires, fuel, and wear and tear and come out the winner. Nascar has completely taken that "real sport" aspect out of the equation. They fostered the bump-to-pass mentality in the name of ratings. I'm so old I remember when if a driver couldn't pass someone cleanly they were considered a "loose nut behind the wheel" and would be out of a ride very soon. Nowadays those types of drivers are considered professionals. Bump and run to get a win used to be considered selfish, childish, and amateurish. There is now a win at all cost mentality that pervades a part of our society from folks that used to know better. It seems that honor, honesty, and integrity are seen as weaknesses. Having a loud mouth and spewing utter garbage seems to be ok with most nascar fans as long as the person speaks with conviction and "isn't afraid to tell it like it is". Sad. Now, get off my lawn.
The 'lucky dog' was created in response the new rule which prevented racing back to the finish line when a caution was thrown. Prior to that, cars would go even faster at the start of a caution just to secure a good track position, and sometimes they would be bearing down on a safety crew trying to get to a wrecked car.
@iamtheoceanr; I've been a fan of NASCAR's "Grand National" series (now Cup) since I watched the 3 week tape delayed, 1963 Daytona 500 on ABC's "Wide World of Sports." I watched as history was being made by one 'Tiny Lund' as he picked up a last minute ride from the Wood Brothers as a reward for saving the life of their #1 driver Marvin Panch during the Speed Weeks 250 mile sports car race (the forerunner of the Rolex 24.) Anyways, I mentioned all that because I just wanted to give you a shout out as having the 100% spot on comment regarding NASCAR Cup Racing currently being held. It's like just another version of those night time singing talent scout shows. Except now it's little boys who barely need to shave and have a big fat Bankroll backing them so they can secure a ride and go play "Bumper Cars" at 200 MPH. Everything you said is exactly the reason that I don't pay any attention to this "Manufactured Soap Opera" any more. Some 'Fans' might call the likes of you and I Boomers or old guys who can't keep up with the times but, anyone who looks objectively at current NASCAR Xfinity or Cup can see what this once Proud, S.E. Regional, Hard Nosed Racing was all about and absolutely is NO MORE! Thanks again for voicing your opinion b/c it is 100% on the money!
I was there the day Awesome Bill from Dawsonville set the fast lap for the pole. That car sounded like no other there that day. We were standing on pit road during qualifying. I have the feeling all the other teams knew what was coming. Bill came around turn four to the stripe and all the other tems that were on pit road all stopped what they were doing and looked at the scoring tower. The lap speed pooped up and they all put their heads down and walked towards the garages. One of the best things I ever witnessed. I was 22 years old and there with my dad and his best friend. They are gone now but, I still get a big smile from that moment. Loved my dad very much. NASCAR used to be a lifestyle for us. Not anymore. Segments suck.
Agreed. It just makes me sick to watch them restart with 2 to go, wreck, and then, "Now we get to re-rack and try again!" When NASCAR races were allowed to end under caution, there was incentive for drivers to be careful enough not to bring the caution out with only a few laps to go.
This car is sitting at Darlington racetrack at the museum and it looks like its running 200 mph just sitting there. It's only about 4 foot from floor to top of car, its badass and I am a diehard Chevrolet man. Got to give credit where it do. Hats off to them georgia boys, man they brung it.
Just to have gotten the opportunity to see the Old Milwaukee on the hook,being towed back to the garage area with Tim Richmond sitting on the door waving at the crowd. Nascar was great back then.
Racing when it was racing. These were The Good Ol Boys. No one called a race better than Ken Squier. How I miss that Vermont legend. A Nascar savant. Great video
@@justforever96en Squier was one of the original founders of the MRN Radio Network. His first calling was play by play at local short tracks up north and Motor Racing Network Nascar races later on. He's called Nascar and auto racing 40+ years. Not only Nascar either. He did Indycar, Imsa and F1 on CBS also.
I love these satellite feeds! Ken Squier and David Hobbs just take me right back to my youth. Cold cold winters in Maine, but always Daytona to brighten things up!!
I think the entire east coast was on the edge of their seats back then... Loved it. When your Dad only gets one free day a week and watch 5 hours of racing with ya, life is complete...
Yep, but same now as then, Squire and Hobbs talk out their ass and making assumptions and mistakes, it used to piss me off because I was just a kid and knew more than them. I spent my paper route money on Stock Car Magazine, Grand National Scene & Illustrated, Auto Racing Digest and Circle Track Magazine. I got a copy of the NASCAR Record and Press Guide, and I was like an encyclopedia, and these two experts, jack asses to me, sounded like clowns, screwing up. Poor Ned having to deal with them. With that said, nowadays I watch these old races and chuckle because today's racing, and commentary, is the shits, and has been for years, and I finally gave it up when they went "woke."
I stopped watch NASCAR shortly after Rusty Wallace retired. Not long after that NASCAR fundamentally changed the sport into the crap hole it is now. Nothing but a crash fest, revenge driven, pit fighting, driver ego, poor sportsman circus. People watch these days because of the drama, not because actual racing. All people want to see now is wrecks, revenge and pit fights. Races back in this time had that sure, but today it's every race, every driver. It's just BS! I watch IMSA now, will never go back to NASCAR.
It was great to see a great race, racer, and car do so well. I was pulling for Elliot the whole way since the beginning. It was awesome and I got teary-eyed listening to Lake Speed about his 2nd place finish. This was when racing was truly racing. I grew up on this wonderful era of Nascar to never be this fantastic again.
@@KevinMcAdams26 could you imagine what the Elliotts would have done at the 1985 Winston 500 to the field if Bill DIDN'T have that oil fitting issue? That would have been an embarrassment, and NASCAR officials couldn't figure out how that car was legal. And yet it was. Ken Squire summed it up best in his comments about the Elliotts; they weren't the biggest team and didn't have all the "trick" parts and pieces.
And imagine I got here from nba all star game 1985, because of the many adverts of this broadcast during the game. Same as motorsports so was in basketball: a matter between grown men, who put not only their skills in it but, first of all, their pride. Different times.
@@adamtereska8734 And the Elliott's refused offers from Ford to share their speed secrets with the other well funded Ford teams. That whole 1985 season on the superspeedways forced Buddy Arrington who was running a Chrysler Imperial to switch midseason to a Ford Thunderbird. I don't think there will ever be a dominant car like what Bill Elliott and the Melling team had in 1985.
I love watching these old NASCAR races. Everything is so beautiful! The race cars, legend drivers, no restrictor plates, the sponsors, the orange 76 ball, pit crew and officials in regular/ordinary uniform and packed stands. Plus, it's all plain & simple racing to win and for points. No damn stages or playoffs crap.👍👍👍. The entire sport has been flipped upsidedown and is not as fun to watch 😝👎.
You got that right the Golden age of NASCAR...When they tried to Dehillbilly it is when it was beginning of the end....Also the restrictor plates really turned me off...HOW do you regulate SPEED and call it a RACE !
NASCAR was a much more kinetic viewing experience back then. Those in charge smoothed themselves out. Both physically and metaphorically they applied bright shiny coats of paint, and lost the gritty vibrations that made it interesting. At the end of the day, NASCAR will only be an obsession to a certain type of person and is never going to appeal to everyone, and I say this as a BROWN SKINNED guy who grew up in NY City and New England. I enjoyed watching it as a kid in the 80s. It was speed and sound wrapped in dirt and seemed to be trying to vibrate my parents TV off the stand. Nowadays the headlights on the cars are clearly decals, back the headlight was DAMNED HOLE some dude put DUCT TAPE OVER!! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m04L2sYEUrg.html. Sorry that part made me laugh out loud.
"officials in regular/ordinary uniform" Safety be dammed, let them burn like Kobe Bryant. And let's do away with the HANS Device, let them snap their necks like Dale Earnhardt, And what's with the cockpit on Indy cars? Let them smash their head against a post as they flip upside down like Dan Wheldon. And get rid of the SAFER barrier, Let's make it all concrete.
@@reedeux7818 Oh ok. The one where Bobby tore the catch fence all up? Makes sense that's what ultimately did it. Thanks! That was the same weekend wasn't it? Everyone was flying
I knew that Bill Elliott won this race. I didn’t realize all that happened to make it possible. I love Cale deadpanning “He ain’t got no competition out there”
Ive never watched a full race from this era as I was 3 years old at the time. The lack of electronic timing and scoring actually adds to the broadcast. For having cars so far apart in speed the suspense is the cars being able to hold up to the speeds. Theres no attrition in racing anymore. The diverse paint schemes and so many different car owners, classic drivers. This is fantastic and I can see why people became fans back then. Nascar is a poor echo of this now.
Cale Yarborough entered 1985 with 81 NCS victories and ended his career in 1988-1989 with a total of 83. He would get his final two wins in 1985 by finally winning the Talladega 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in July (which is now held in October), and the National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in October (which is now run on the ROVAL since 2018, run on the oval from 1960-2017).
The J.D. McDuffie part just goes to show how a man's will can be so strong and even though his wife begged him to stop she still under stands his passion for the sport. Made me feel terrible know he past away years later and that poor sweet woman was a widow knowing her husband worked so hard to prove his worth year's in an out just to put food on the table for his family. It's just unfair he couldn't got breaks and wins just to show how great he was.
I saw the interview of his wife after he died and she was talking about having to sell off the place cause she was broke and how she heard nothing from Nascar. Not that they are obligated but you'd have thought they could've gave her something, or at least some drivers would've helped a bit.
@user-ge8pq4nj4n cause he fought hard and never won on the big stage of nascar all those years. It's like never reaching your goal knowing it's right there and obtainable but falling short
1:54:30 During a break, Jarrett starts talking about watching this race on the satellite and explaining to Hobbs that their comments during commercial breaks are going out to the satellite viewers. Hobbs didn't know it! You can almost hear the gears turning in his head, thinking "Have I been saying anything that'll get me in trouble later?"
This HAS to be the pinnacle of coverage in stock car racing. It’s ‘sittin on the edge’ racing - watching the onboard camera, raw stock cars, great driving and listening to the best trio NASCAR ever had on racing coverage. Thank god to Smiff TV!!
Hearing them play a song with a lyric I’m gonna live forever during the Tim Richmond segment really brought a tear to my eye. Overall a really good race. Thanks for the upload!
Love the Satellite feed, hearing them banter back and forth. I attended Nascar races from 1971 to 2007. Loved listening to the scanner and listening to communication from driver to pits. Used to listen to the MRN feed and at commercial breaks hearing them talk about where they are going to eat after race, spotting women in the crowd, and gabbing right up to the Hot Mike warning!
I remember watching these races on the early satellites. It was the coolest thing to me back then that we could watch and listen during the commercial breaks. Lol Amazing the little things like this that I was amazed by as a kid
'70-until about '95 is probably the greatest 15 year time period in mankind history. The cars, music, sports, you name it. .....for a smaller sample size, id say '77-'89....im biased of course...lol
That's 25 years but yea even better. More years that truly we're the golden years of humanity. The world didn't end on y2k but it's been straight down hill ever since..😢
22:39 Man my heart jumped. I expected a caution to be thrown when I saw that paper fly across the track. The absolute balls of these old school NASCAR officials, letting these boys race through *paper!* 😂
@@LT1HILLINGHOE you must be for them are coupe gm Horsepiss which were nothing more than a aero dynamic band aid to allow gm to catch Bill an were nothing more than a aero dynamic band aid to cover up for a pass pour design item should never been allowed on Trac LMK an bil would had another 11 win season in 86
@@brianbooher7318See, if you hadn't replied, no one would have known about your ignorance problem. Remember that, Skippy. P.S. It's never too late to finish 3rd grade. Look how your mom broke ground, in your family, by doing that. I'm rooting for ya'!
At 1:43:20 A great segment on J.D. McDuffie, who would later die on August 11, 1991 at Watkins Glen in NY, in the early laps of the Budweiser at the Glen. I remember it well because I made the same trek from NC to NY to work the race for ESPN as a electronics tech. Which didn't pay much ($100 bucks a day plus a hotel room for 8 days, but came with a God pass to the track and garage area...
Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed. But that was $100 bucks divided by 16+ hour days for 8 days (on 24 hour call), after having had to drive 600 miles to get to the hotel, 40 minutes from the track. If not for the 10 cent buffalo wings in the hotel bar, we'd of all went broke. The $50 dollar a day utility guys did go broke, and they all lived in NY state. But the point of that statement wasn't a complaint. It was to show how far we would go to be part of the action... But that one was the worst by far, and I only did it the one time there. There was a time when Bill Elliot and I were on a first name bases...
@@MatHelm Pay him no nevermind Mat, there's one in every comment thread here in the devil's playground aka Internet 🤷🏻♂️ Thanks for all your, and your co-workers hard work to bring us Race crazies all the great action from Watkins Glen! 💪😎👍
I remember watching this live, back in 85. Was a big Bill Elliott fan, and this was the start of his run for the Million. This was such an amazing year
If someone out there can find the full 1985 Winston 500 where Bill Elliott made up 2 laps at Talladega UNDER GREEN, that would be cool, but it's still hard to believe Buddy Baker's race average speed for the Daytona 500 from 1980 has stood up for over 35 years and it almost was broken in 1985 cause it almost went caution free as well as the attrition rate due to Elliott's pace
Actually, as fast as the average speed for this Daytona 500 was (172.265 MPH), Bill Elliott's 1987 win was accomplished at an even faster pace. Elliott missed breaking Baker's Daytona 500 speed record two years later by less than a minute and a half. Elliott's race winning time in 1987 was 77 seconds slower than Baker's in 1980 (2:50:12 vs. Baker's 2:48:55 in 1980). And as for the attrition in this race, Bill Elliott attributed that to most of his competition running too low of a gear to try to keep up with him (Richard Petty's problems started when he ran out of gas just after the first caution came out, which led to his gearbox problems), though as the commentators noted, this race was run in warmer conditions than they had raced and practiced in all week. The odd thing was that, as high as the attrition seemed like it was in the 1985 race, it actually wasn't that much worse than it was in 1984, especially in the first 300 miles. The difference was that most of the cars that fell out were the more heavily financed teams of that period, which allowed those that usually ran in the back of the pack to have better than usual days.
This metric of average speed isn't even measured today I don't think but it sure was the talk of many broadcasts years ago. Stage racing has cautions built-in but stage racing as well as the playoffs is plain stupid.
Them boys are unbeatable in for NASCAR kept breaking one off Andy Ellis week after week changing rules just imagine if you go back and put this and take the schedule got now replace it was the 1985 schedule and there's a very real possibility used to be looking Bill have him 20 to 25 wins could you take out almost all all of the short tracks. people don't see I don't think about Ellie's 1985 season yes he can't f****** ice on a big Speedways but he had a he had absolutely no competition. The part that people don't think about his highest the schedule almost with short tracks to. and the fact that was the shortest season in NASCAR history. If Ellie to come home about five years later and he just ride hey be looking a lot more championships cuz you eliminate most of the short tracks Plus by 1988 The Voice has a short track program down not being together Eagles championships
I'll never forget when they started putting cameras in cars. They put you right in the backseat passenger side and it was eye opening seeing Richard with the towel or hearing the audible strains of driving the car from Cale Yarborough. This really changed people's opinions of how hard it was to drive one of these cars at 200 mph for 500 miles.
Nobody wanted to get hurt, or hurt anyone else, it's the natural way. The over regulation of nascar now is not for safety so much as reducing liability, and dictating acceptable suppliers.
This was the season that got me hooked...for next fifteen years every Sunday and many, many races attended.."The Winston Million" was the hook...lots of coverage on Sports center etc.
I was there that weekend. My buddy's Dad did breakfast and Brunch in that blue and white hospitality tent inside turn 4. We're on barrels on the fence coming out of 4, in the infield, Beers in each pocket, and lovin some racing. Those were the best days. Miss these guys.
I'm watching this in 2022 waiting for today's Daytona 500 to come on love watching them old cars I wish they'd bring them back from time to time just to see him run the track today
The camera views they show today are absolutely shameful , compared to what they were showing back then. Watching a bumper or watching a driver sitting in his seat. How stupid have TV producer's become ???
It's well known that Bill France Sr, and his family, had a lot of GM stock. They always favored the chevy's. Ford was dominant for a few years through sheer hard work.
I always enjoyed the music they used at the close of the broadcast during this era. Very melancholy, as if they knew fans were looking forward to this all year and now it was over.
CBS, TNN & TBS, all 3 Networks did a great job with music selection back then. When Kyle Petty won his 1st race in 86, I think it was a TBS race & they played Jim Croce's "I got a name" as they rolled the credits & antique finished still pics from the race at the end, very cool! 😎
The best part about these old races is that you could see what each car was. It wasn't hard to look at a car and know that it is a ThunderBird, a Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, etc. Now you have to look close and try to find a bow tie or blue oval to know what it is.
